Hogwarts: Don't call me Wandmaker

Chapter 127 Horcruxes and Animagus
After the Christmas holidays, Malfoy was taken away by his father again, supposedly because he broke his leg when he went downstairs at night. This became the talk of the town at Hogwarts, and Malfoy was ridiculed for several days.

Harry and the others were talking about this while they were having breakfast today, and they all laughed heartily every time they brought it up.

Neville laughed as he looked up at the enchanted ceiling.

"The postman will be here soon. I think Grandma will send a few things I forgot to bring."

Just as Xilun took a bite of his toast, he heard a commotion overhead. Hundreds of owls swarmed in, dropping letters and packages into the crowd.

A large gray package fell from the sky and landed heavily on the Gryffindor table, overturning all the surrounding plates and splashing milk and pumpkin juice everywhere.

"What happened?" Harry asked, pumpkin juice still dripping from the half-eaten bread in his hand.

Just now, his pot was knocked over, and the half-full pumpkin juice inside splashed all over him.

"Sorry. It's my package," Siren said, quickly taking the item off the table.

“Garian Ollivander…” Harry, who was drying his hair, suddenly noticed a letter in his plate, and he didn’t recognize the sender’s name at all.

Wait, Ollivander...

“Sirlen, this should be for you too.” Harry handed the letter to Sirlen. “I was just blown here by the blast.”

“Yes.” Xiren casually opened the letter and glanced at it. “It’s a letter from my father.”

"What did he give you?" Ron asked curiously.

Xilun opened the package; inside was a large brown flowerpot filled with soil.

"They sent you a potted plant?" Ron looked incredulously at the slender green shoot outside the pot. "A potted plant delivered by an owl?"

“Ron, this is no ordinary flower!” Hermione said.

“I don’t see anything special about it.” Ron touched the leaves with his hand and then smelled the purple flower at the top.

These are just ordinary flowers, similar to those growing around the vegetable garden in my humble abode.

“This is mandrake,” Neville suddenly said from the side.

Hermione closed her mouth again, giving Ron a disgruntled look. "Sometimes I really wonder if you've ever taken a herbalism class. We just learned about it three months ago."

“How could that be?” Ron said. “I remember mandrake leaves don’t look like that at all. Don’t try to fool me.”

“Professor Sprout showed us a young mandrake,” Neville explained. “The leaves of an adult mandrake will become smaller and it will grow purple flowers.”

"Sirlen, did your father really give this to you?" His tone was full of disbelief.

This plant is quite rare, and more importantly, the cry of a mature mandrake can be deadly...

More people realized this too, and the next second, everyone around Xilun ran away, standing even further away, as if afraid that the mandrake roots would sprout from the ground at any moment.

"Don't be so nervous," Xiren said, half-laughing and half-crying. "You don't think I'm going to pull it out, do you?"

Hearing him say that, the group cautiously approached.

Hermione walked in front, but it was clear that she was still a little scared.

Even if Xilun doesn't pull it out on its own, what if it falls to the ground and breaks...?

In some ways, this plant is even more terrifying than a fire dragon; at least when facing a fire dragon, one can try to escape.

“Don’t worry, it’s really okay,” Xilun said, while grasping a few thin branches and pulling them upwards with force.

"Ah!" Hermione screamed instinctively, almost piercing Harry's ears.

But after screaming, she found that the mandrake plant hadn't moved an inch, and even the soil in the pot remained unchanged.

“This flowerpot is enchanted,” Celen explained. “The mandrake roots inside can’t be pulled out, and the flowerpot is reinforced with a magic spell. It won’t break even if you drop it from fifty feet. Don’t worry.”

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and then immediately surrounded Xilun.

"This really is mandrake..."

“It’s genuine, no doubt about it,” Xilun said.

"But why did your parents give you this?" Neville didn't quite understand.

Mandrake is very valuable, but too dangerous to be suitable for everyday planting, especially since this one is already mature.

"Oh, it's probably because it looks good," Xilun said vaguely, brushing it off.

In fact, he needed fresh mandrake leaves to begin the Animagus transformation.

He initially intended to look for it in the school's greenhouse, but for some reason, Professor Sprout had hidden all the mandrakes away; he couldn't find even a handful of soil, let alone any leaves.

Buying them won't work either. As mentioned in "Dangerous Human Metamorphosis," the best way to perform Animagus transformation is to use freshly picked leaves.

Delivery from Diagon Alley would take at least half a day. Having no other option, Siron wrote a letter to his parents, lying that he was interested in herbalism and wanted to grow a mandrake to observe daily.

His parents were both wizards who studied magical plants, so getting a pot of mandrake was incredibly easy for them.

Although they did not doubt Xilun's excuse, they made the necessary preparations and cast a spell on the flowerpot.

Not only can the mandrake not be pulled out, but the flowerpot is also sturdy enough to be destroyed under normal circumstances, unless a powerful spell is used.

All of this is written in the letter.

Garian and Lila felt that this was safe enough.

They never imagined that Siren was learning Animagus transformations... Who would learn Animagus transformations in second grade?

After breakfast, Xilun carried the mandrake back to his dormitory, casually picked a leaf, washed it, and put it in his mouth.

The first step in learning Animagus is to hold a leaf in your mouth on the day of the full moon, without swallowing or spitting it out, and continue this until the next full moon.

Coincidentally, today is the full moon.

If he only receives it tomorrow, he will have to wait a month to try again. At this point, Xilun felt quite fortunate.

However, that evening, he accidentally chewed up a leaf after saying something to Harry.

A bitter and astringent taste instantly filled my mouth, and even the fried pork chop didn't taste good anymore.

However, Xilun suddenly realized that today wasn't over yet, so this full moon should still count, right?

So when he got back to his dorm, he changed into a new one.

……

The next morning, Hermione looked at the listless Celeste and asked, "What's wrong? Didn't you sleep well last night?"

“I rested very well.” Xiren sighed. It was because he rested so well… When he woke up in the morning, the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the leaf that should have been in his mouth, now on his pillow.

It's clear that he felt unwell after falling asleep and subconsciously vomited.

There was nothing more to say; he could only wait for the next full moon. However, Xilun planned to practice more in the meantime, so he didn't throw away the leaf but kept it in his mouth.

This feeling was really awkward; it was uncomfortable whether eating or talking. And after teaching a Transfiguration class, Professor McGonagall immediately noticed the problem.

After noticing that Siren's speech had become slurred, she keenly realized that Siren was already attempting to undergo Animagus transformation.

So after class, she kept Xilun behind and asked him directly, "Where did you get the mandrake?"

After being reminded by her several times, Pomona had already put the nearly mature mandrakes into the ninth greenhouse, which was not open to students. There shouldn't be any way for Xilun to find them.

"I...I bought it." Xilun pursed his lips, almost swallowing the leaf again.

“You…” Professor McGonagall looked at him angrily, “How dare you? You’ve only read books for a few months and you dare to perform Animagus transformation? Do you know how dangerous that is?”

“It’s just…preparation work…Professor.” Siren shook his head, spat out the leaf, and said, “I won’t try to transform so soon; I’m just completing the necessary preparations first.”

“I’ve read ‘Transfiguration Today.’ It says that many wizards spend a lot of time on the first step, and a wizard named Balta even spent twenty years without success.”

Professor McGonagall's lips twitched; she hadn't expected Siron to even know this.

Balta, an American wizard and a seasoned master of transfiguration, is on par with her, but she cannot transmigrate as an Animagus.

Because he just couldn't hold the mandrake leaf in his mouth until the next full moon, he was stuck on the first step for twenty years.

And it wasn't just Baltare, but Dumbledore as well.

The legendary white wizard, Albus Dumbledore, who once taught Transfiguration at Hogwarts, could not transform into Animagus.

It sounds like a joke, but it's true, because he always chews mandrake leaves in his mouth while eating, and he's been doing this for five years.

However, this was a secret, and no one knew except Professor McGonagall; everyone just thought that Dumbledore didn't need to learn the spell.

“I just want to get the preparations done first,” Celen said. “Once it’s ready to try, we can proceed directly without wasting any more time.”

“For a normal wizard… well, for most wizards, it’s not actually that difficult to get to this point,” Professor McGonagall said. “Most people succeed within six months, so why are you in such a hurry?”

Xilun simply smiled.

He wasn't in a hurry before, until he accidentally created the Horcrux and its [Magic Follow] property.

As we all know, Animagus cannot use wands after transforming, not even a seasoned Transfiguration master like Professor McGonagall. But what if they didn't need to hold a wand?
Even if a wizard transforms into an animal, their magic cannot simply vanish into thin air, and [Magic Follow] can actively draw magic from Xilun.

Perhaps he could thus become the first wizard to use a wand in animal form... if the animal were small enough, the enemy wouldn't even be able to fight back.

……

(End of this chapter)